510 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
What the flavour of a cygnet may be | cannot say, having never 
tried it; but if it has the slightest resemblance to that of the adult 
Hooper,—which I was once rash enough to taste, after I had 
divested it of its skin, on the coast of Norfolk,—I should say it 
was anything but the Kwng’s-mat, or “ King’s food,” as the Swedish 
peasants are wont to describe it. It is, however, to be remembered 
that as the Swan subsists almost entirely on aquatic plants,—and 
never, as some people imagine, on fish,—the flesh has not the 
slightest oily taste, so that it may be palatable to some, for “de 
gustibus non est disputandum.” Coarse, however, in flavour, and 
black in colour, as my experience leads me to describe it, I cannot 
conceive that any amount of fattening, or any culiuvary skill, could 
make it worth the four guineas generally supposed to be its cost, 
according to the following scale :— 
For the lean Swan . . : : One Guinea. 
Fatting the Swan. : ‘ : One Guinea. 
Dressing the Swan . ‘ : ; One Guinea. 
Cook’s customary fee ; . , One Guinea.* 
It must at the same time be confessed that it was of old con- 
sidered a “lordly dish,” and figures as a very highly esteemed 
item in bills of fare of the sixteenth century; indeed no great feast 
was considered complete without it. 
Before we left the Swannery, our guide showed us, within the 
same precincts, a decoy for Ducks hard by. There were the tame 
Ducks, which would come to his whistle, swimming about in the 
Fleet outside; there were the wattled fences which screened him 
from view of the incoming wild Ducks; there were the openings 
at which he showed himself when he would drive the birds up, 
now well within the channel; there was the point where the 
dog was sent in to decoy them on; and there was the gradually 
decreasing channel up which they were driven till they reached 
the fatal bag-net at the end; all in exact conformity with Yarrell’s 
well-known illustration. But few Ducks are caught here now; 
they are mostly reserved for shooting. Asked as to the average 
number of Ducks thus caught in the winter, he said ten or twelve 
at a time was a very good catch, and two hundred in the course of 
the winter a very fair tale of Ducks. From which I concluded 
that although the Swannery is undoubtedly the largest in the 
* «The Zoologist’ for 1846, p. 1250. 
